The Montgomery Major All-Stars District 19 came to a sudden stop on Thursday when the team was disqualified due to several players having been ruled ineligible for tournament play.

Montgomery had played two games, beating Monroe-Woodbury, 9-0, on June 12 and following that with an 8-3 win over Cornwall the next day. However, Montgomery was forced to vacate the win over Cornwall and sent to the elimination bracket, where they forfeited a game against the Town of Wallkill.

Many of the players on the team were a part of last year’s Minors team that reached the New York State semifinals last year.

“These young ladies have been robbed of continuing to play in this journey,” Montgomery Little League officials said in a statement released on social media. “Due to a technicality in a length of a game that was cut short by rain, some of the all-star girls did not meet playing requirements for tournament play.”

According to Little League International, Major softball players must have participated in eight regular-season games by the beginning of the international tournament, which begins at the District level. The only exception is made for players who play during a school season. Those players must participate in 60 percent of the games available to them.

According to Montgomery Little League President Marc Hamilton, the trouble started with a game that was scheduled to be played on June 9. However, after two innings were played, thunderstorms forced cancellation of the game.

Four games over the two teams that make up the Major All-Stars were also canceled that week due to the poor air quality from the Canadian wildfires.

Another game was played on June 10, but two players hadn’t played the required eight games. However, coaches on both teams of Friday’s game believed having started the game on June 9 was enough to count for eligibility.

A ruling from Little League International in Bristol determined that it was not.

With the tournament starting on June 12, there was no time to make the game up. Had he known the two players would have been ineligible, they would have been removed from the team.

Hamilton said a parent who was part of Montgomery Little League and upset that his daughter wasn’t selected to the team created a fictitious email account and used it to report the team playing two ineligible players.

Hamilton declined to reveal the parent’s identity.

“I spoke to this parent last night and the community knows who he is, and he will face whatever the community rains down on him,” Hamilton said. “I have 12 crying girls that I’ve coached since they were 7 years old that feel like they’ve had their legs taken out from underneath them.”

League officials also rebuked rumors that a scorebook had been forged and that some of the girls only played travel ball and didn’t show up to Little League games.

Instead of reporting to Wallkill Area Little League field on Thursday and being walked off the field in embarrassment, Hamilton broke the news to the team at Veteran’s Memorial Park on Friday; the league took the team out for bowling and pizza.

“If there’s one silver lining, instead of breaking apart, they rallied together when they got the news and they hugged each other,” Hamilton said. “The tears made them stronger. It’ll make them stronger as a team. I told them when we got into a big huddle, ‘being a champion means you get up one more time than you get knocked down. As long as you guys approach it like that, you’re champions.’”